1. Field of the Invention
This specification relates to a robot cleaner, and particularly, to a robot cleaner having a member for obviating a wire from being wound (rolled, entangled) around a wheel.
2. Background of the Invention
A cleaner is an apparatus for cleaning a room or the like by removing foreign materials therefrom. Generally, a vacuum cleaner, which sucks up foreign materials using a suction force of a pressure section, is generally used. In recent time, a robot cleaner, which moves by itself by virtue of an automatic travel function to remove foreign materials from a floor of a room without a user's work, has been developed.
The robot cleaner includes a distance sensor for detecting a distance up to an obstacle, such as furniture, office supplies, walls and the like, present in a zone to be cleaned, and left and right wheels for traveling of the robot cleaner. Here, the left and right wheels are configured to be rolled by a left-wheel motor and a right-wheel motor, respectively. Accordingly, the robot cleaner converts traveling directions by itself in response to the operation of the left-wheel motor and the right-wheel motor to perform cleaning of a room. A suction element is provided within a main body of the robot cleaner, and a suction opening for sucking dust up therethrough is present at a lower surface thereof. Furthermore, an agitator for sweeping up dust on a floor of the cleaning zone is rotatably mounted at the inlet. A filter for filtering foreign materials in the air sucked from the floor to purify the air is provided in an air flow path within the robot cleaner. Hence, the robot cleaner sucks dust up on the floor into the main body by a suction force of the suction element and the rotation of the agitator with traveling in the cleaning zone, and collects the dust at the filter, thus to perform automatic cleaning. The collected dust is stored in a dust can within the robot cleaner.
FIG. 1 is a side sectional view showing a schematic structure of a robot is cleaner according to the related art, and FIG. 2 is a view showing a lower side of the robot cleaner. Briefly explaining the structure, the robot cleaner includes a battery 10 rechargeably disposed therein and having a rectangular parallelepiped shape so as to supply power for working the robot cleaner, and a dust can 20 for storing collected dust and a suction fan 30 for providing a driving force to suck up dust. An agitator 40 and a brush 50 are provided at a lower side of a main body of the robot cleaner to gather up dust from a floor of the lower side of the robot cleaner. Wheels 80 are provided at the lower side of the robot cleaner. The wheels 80 are rolled by power charged in the battery 10 to move the main body of the robot cleaner.
However, to clean the floor of the room, the robot cleaner travels with the wheels 80 being rolled. During traveling in the room, the wire or other line dragged on the floor may be entangled in the wheel to be wound into the main body of the robot cleaner. Such entangled wire may be finally wound around a driving shaft of the wheel to make the wheel difficult to be rolled. That is, the wire or other slender line entangled in the wheel 80 may be wound (rolled, entangled) into a gap G between the wheel 80 and a lower surface of the main body shown in FIG. 2.